Case Number 08675

THE BOY IN BLUE

The Charge

The true story of a legend who left history in his wake.

Opening Statement

This umpteenth variation on the Rocky theme, this time with sculling
as the theme sport, proves once and for all that there's a reason why many
people hate sports movies. Quite simply, it's because too many sports movies
stink on ice. Or, in this case, on water.

Facts of the Case

In a later era, Ned Hanlan (a pre-orthodontia Nicolas Cage, Lord Of
War) might be described as a one-man Hooters restaurant: delightfully tacky,
yet unrefined. But it's the late 19th century, so Ned has the designation all to
himself. A ne'er-do-well who spends his days running illegal hooch around
Toronto Bay in his beat-up skiff, and his nights playing slap-and-tickle with
winsome tavern lass Dulcie (Melody Anderson, Flash Gordon), Ned's claim
to local fame is his unparalleled skill at rowing.

When Ned bests the flashy Bill McCoy (David Naughton, wearing a fake
mustache that would embarrass An American Werewolf in London) in a match
race, the two men become partners: Bill will pull the strings while Ned
concentrates on pulling the oars. Before Ned's first world-class race in
Philadelphia, a third partner joins the team -- Walter Brown (Sean Sullivan,
2001: A Space Odyssey), a master boatwright who has invented a seat that
slides on rollers inside the scull, enabling the rower to pull with faster,
smoother strokes.

Ned's success draws the attention of a gambling syndicate headed by the oily
Colonel Knox (Christopher Plummer, The Sound Of Music). To entice the
bankable young oarsman into his clutches, Knox aims his comely, high-born niece,
Maggie Sutherland (Cynthia Dale, who followed Cage to Moonstruck), at Ned
to worm her way into his unsuspecting heart.

With Ned having outrowed all comers in North America, the stage is set for
The Boy In Blue (so dubbed because of his baby blue rowing outfit) to
face his greatest rival, arrogant Australian oarsman Edward Trickett (Robert
McCormick), for the world sculling championship on jolly old England's River
Thames.

The Evidence

If ever there was an "underdog who becomes a champion" sports flick
that deserved to drive a stake through the heart of this shopworn genre, The
Boy In Blue is that flick. Unoriginal, uninspired, and utterly
suspense-free, this limp throwaway of a movie wouldn't even make a decent Movie
of the Week on an all-sports cable channel.

Nothing in the film succeeds, starting with the cast. Nicolas Cage turns in
another of the cheerfully goofball performances he specialized in early in his
career before he found his stride as an actor. Despite his chiseled physique --
which director Charles Jarrott exploits at every sweat-glazed opportunity --
Cage never convinces us that he is a top-flight athlete, or living in the 1870s,
or Canadian. Callow David Naughton is woefully miscast as Ned's manager and best
friend -- his hit-or-miss Canuck accent is marginally more consistent than
Cage's, but that's faint praise. Naughton looks and sounds like a modern-day
frat boy in period drag. Cynthia Dale and Melody "Dale Arden" Anderson
may well be the two most pallid, least interesting girlfriend types ever cast
together in a major motion picture. (The film's R rating is entirely
attributable to these two actresses each sharing a regrettably silly sex scene
with Cage.) Christopher Plummer phones in yet another of his stereotypical smug
villains. I wanted to reach through the screen and put my hand over his mouth,
in case he yawned.

Meanwhile, behind the camera, director Jarrott serves up writer Douglas
Bowie's tepid script with all the flair of a man who has labored for decades as
a maker of industrial training films. Anyone who has every seen rowing live, or
on television during the Summer Olympics, knows what an exciting, dramatic sport
it can be at its best. Jarrott invests his film with none of that excitement and
drama, being content to simply record the events in dogged, workmanlike fashion.
None of Ned's races are set up with sufficient intensity or intrigue that we
sense anything monumental is about to occur. None of the racing footage conveys
any sense that the people involved are doing anything more notable than taking a
leisurely afternoon cruise. None of the interactive scenes rises above the level
of daytime soap opera. If Ned Hanlan's life behind the oars really was this
boring, it's a miracle that anyone ever wagered a dollar on him.

Hardly content to simply be tiresome, The Boy In Blue vaults its way
into aural annoyance by way of Roger Webb's aggressively clichéd, hellishly
obnoxious, ludicrously anachronistic synthesizer-and-brass-laden score. Imagine
a screechy mishmash of every awful film soundtrack you remember from bad genre
films from the 1980s, and here you have it.

Overall, the production has the cheap, disposable feel of a TV movie. Not
surprising, since it was coproduced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
That's a reason, perhaps, but not an excuse, especially in a picture made with
name personnel for theatrical release.

Perhaps realizing that they have a turkey on their hands, Fox Home Video
wastes precious little resources on its DVD release of The Boy In Blue.
The anamorphic transfer on this two-sided disc (a full-frame version also
appears, in case you desperately crave the true cheesy telefilm experience)
displays brilliant, natural color against flaccid definition, with repeated but
minor streaks, specks, and other source print artifacts. Both the stereo and
mono soundtracks deliver an acceptably clear, if tinny and occasionally harsh,
audio quality. It's a thoroughly average presentation on both ends.

Although based on the exploits of a true-life sports hero, The Boy In
Blue gives us nary an extra to flesh out the story of the man inside the
turquoise togs. Judging by the quality of the disc's lone extra -- a grimy,
grainy theatrical trailer that looks as though Nicolas Cage stored it in his
basement with his comic book collection for the past 20 years -- perhaps it's
just as well.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Yes, Edward "Ned" Hanlan really existed. The greatest oarsman of
his generation, Hanlan won all but six of the 300-odd races that marked his
professional career, and he held the world rowing championship for the better
part of a decade.

That's about all I know about the man, other than the fact that his life
probably merited a better movie.

Closing Statement

If you believed no one could make a worse rowing movie than Oxford
Blues, The Boy In Blue will quickly disabuse you of that
misperception. You'll be blue yourself if you blow your looneys on this Roy
Hobbs wannabe. For Nicolas Cage completists, diehard sculling fanatics, and
jingoistic Canadians only.

The Verdict

The Boy In Blue is found guilty of impersonating a worthwhile sports
film, and is sentenced to a long night by a campfire singing rounds of
"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" with William Shatner. We're adjourned.